'Cold Blood' Tackles Brutal 1995 Lesbian Murder in Park Slope

When a July 5, 1995. attack in the lesbian-friendly Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn, N.Y., left Sylvia Lugo dead and her girlfriend, Amanda Leach, wounded and raped, many thought the police bungled the case. Leach said a Hispanic man had attacked the couple, but police thought Leach was to blame and the case was played out for months in the media.

BY Diane Anderson-Minshall

May 09 2012 5:19 PM ET

When a July 5, 1995, attack in the lesbian-friendly Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn, N.Y., left Sylvia Lugo dead and her girlfriend, Amanda Leach, wounded and raped, many thought the police bungled the case. Leach said a Hispanic man had attacked the couple, but police thought Leach was to blame and the case was played out for months in the media. It led Christine Quinn (now speaker of the New York City Council), who was executive director of the New York City Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project at the time, to accuse the NYPD of leaking information suggesting Leach was the killer.

"Had they not decided that the survivor was the murderer and convicted her in the court of public opinion," Quinn told the New York Daily News, "they would have caught this man before he continued his crime spree."

Now an episode of Cold Blood titled "Park Slope Justice" will tackle the story of Lugo and Leach's attack. It airs on Investigation Discovery (ID) Thursday at 9 p.m. and it covers both the crime and how it spurred Brooklyn's LGBT community to rally against the scrutiny of one of their own.